By John Corrado
You have to respect a film title that tells you exactly what to expect. Think Snakes on a Plane. Or Clown in a Cornfield. That’s the pretty self-explanatory title of this mostly fun new killer clown movie from director Eli Craig, best known for his cult favourite 2010 horror comedy Tucker & Dale vs. Evil.
Craig’s latest is set in Kettle Springs, a sleepy, All-American town built on the Baypen Corn Syrup empire. The whole town is tied to the past, hosting an annual Founder’s Day festival to pay tribute to Baypen, and the company’s mascot Frendo the Clown, who has been reimagined as a creepy serial killer in local lore.
The film opens in 1991, when local teenagers partying near the old corn syrup factory encounter the killer clown emerging from – you guessed it – a cornfield.
We then cut to present day, with lonely teenager Quinn (Katie Douglas) moving to Kettle Springs with her dad Glenn Maybrook (Aaron Abrams), who has been hired as the new doctor in town. Quinn falls in with a group of prankster teens led by Cole Hill (Carson MacCormac), heir to the Baypen company. The town has been rocked by a fire at the old factory, with the high schoolers being viewed suspiciously.
Killer clowns have been popularized in horror through Stephen King’s It and the more recent Terrifier franchise, and Clown in a Cornfield doesn’t reinvent the wheel. In fact, the film seems fully aware of its own lineage, with Frendo being influenced by both Pennywise and Art the Clown. The story doesn’t do away with the expected tropes (i.e., the characters all fit into high school movie archetypes), but rather has some fun leaning into them.
Craig, adapting a novel of the same name by Adam Cesare, combines these slasher movie tropes with a few more self-aware, meta touches. It’s not fully Scream territory, but there is an aspect of it that keeps Clown in a Cornfield enjoyable. The tone oscillates between horror, dark comedy, over-the-top gore, and something resembling modern commentary in its portrait of a fading town in “flyover country” trying to maintain its relevance. The film takes a little while to reveal its cards, but offers some decent suspense and thrills once the carnage ramps up about halfway through.
Despite the American setting, there is also a point of Canadian pride in watching the film; it was shot in Winnipeg and features Canadian leads, starting with Douglas and Abrams. The two share a believable father-daughter dynamic together, and the cast is rounded out by recognizable Canuck character actors Will Sasso (as the local sheriff) and Kevin Durand (as the town’s richest resident).
Film Rating: ★★½ (out of 4)
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